dark clouds
by Val-Creative
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak and Beverly Marsh discuss their similar parental abuse over some wine. (IT 2019.)


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Beverly raids the antique liquor cabinet to Derry Town House, ignoring the sign of **KEEP OUT** nailed to the swinging bar-door. She pulls bottle after bottle from the glass-case and sniffles. Her mascara running in thin, dark streaks down her rosy cheeks.

Never wanted to remember, no. She never wanted to remember how they were going to die in a horrible, gruesome manner.

Her fingers tremble through the collection of alcohol glass on the bar-counter. All of her rings flashing rose-gold. Beverly forces her hand down flat, sucking in a deep breath before taking a huge mouthful of the port wine, and then of vermouth. Then the bourbon whiskey.

Beverly's eyes gaze towards the darkness of the first-floor corridor. A tall mannish shadow, pitch-black, gazes back at her.

_Bevvie…_

She clenches her jaw, trembling harder. Beverly's green eyes widening, tormented.

"No, Daddy," Beverly whispers.

_Bevvie…_

"Stop…"

"Bev?" Eddie says softly, walking out the corridor with a massive, rolling suitcase. He stares in mounting confusion as Beverly gasps her next inhale, squeezing her eyes shut. More black-grey, makeup tears rolling down her face. "Bev? Are you okay?"

"I, uhm," she says loudly, dully, fumbling in a pocket for her rumpled carton of cigarettes. "I could use a drink."

Eddie glances at the tall shot of vodka in front of her. "Don't you already have—" Beverly downs that shot, tilting her entire head back and swallowing, pouring herself another vodka shot. An unlit cigarette jams between her lips. "—okay," Eddie concludes.

"What's your poison, Eds?"

He wanders over, dropping onto a low bar-stool. "Dry martini?"

Beverly pretends to look around, sweeping her fingers importantly, delicately tapping over the array of bottles.

"How about your _very own_ bottle of cognac?" she announces.

"Yes, please," Eddie says, thrilled. "Thank you." He uncaps it, breathing in the notes of vanilla and peach and tobacco-harvest. Beverly lights up her cigarette hastily, relaxing over the counter's edge. "_Wait_—should we be doing this, Bev?"

"At this point I don't think it matters."

Cigarette smoke pouring from Beverly's lips drift towards Eddie.

He hacks and wheezes, batting a hand in the air. One of Eddie's hands digging frantically into his hoodie-pocket.

Beverly lifts an eyebrow, pleasantly smiling. "Still with the inhaler, huh?"

"I know it's not real," Eddie acknowledges, puffing and holding it in. "I know it's water vapor with a slightly bitter medicinal taste." He makes a gruff, frustrated noise. "But I need it. I don't think I'm ever gonna _not_ need it."

As expected, he motions for Beverly's cigarette.

She's expecting him to smush it into the ashtray, or give her a mini-lecture about the ongoing cancer rates, but Eddie puts it to his lips, sucking in. A blot of her red, red lipstick on the papery covering. He exhales a gust of smoke, handing the cigarette back over to an awestruck Beverly.

Eddie's inhaler returns to his mouth, puffing twice.

"I'm pretty sure the reason I cut off all my hair I've had since kindergarten and refused to grow it back out is because of my dad." Beverly nods contemplatively. Her red waves burnished in the lamplight. "Residual _trauma_ and all that."

"Pretty sure I'm a hypochondriac because of my mom." Eddie nods with her, glancing down at his lap. "I can still hear her in my head, all of the time," he murmurs, forehead wrinkling. Eddie's forefinger hovers near his temple, crooking slightly. "Nagging. Screaming at the top of her lungs. Telling me that I'm gonna get _sick_, that it's not _safe_, that I shouldn't be doing this."

Beverly's tongue presses on the inside of her cheek. "I married someone like my dad."

"Yeah?"

"Drunk, violent, controlling…" she rattles off, outraged by her own memory-loss when it mattered. "_Possessive_… _rapey_…"

Eddie utters a queasy moan, gulping the cognac.

"If it makes you feel any better, I married the near-_identical_ version of my mom. Not just mentally and emotionally like her, but… _physically_," he confesses, wincing as Beverly tuts, scooting him another two overflowing shots of vodka.

"Ouch."

"Tell me about it."

Beverly sips on the gin bottle. "I can't get off unless I'm getting hurt," she says flatly.

"I can't get off at all," Eddie admits, so quietly. So humiliated. "I've…_ I've never had one_."

"Had what?"

"An… _orgasm_."

"You've _NEVER_ had an orgasm?" Beverly repeats, gaping. Eddie aims a long-suffering frown at her, but not angry, dragging a hand over his reddening face. "Oh no. Someone needs to call Richie Tozier in here. Pronto."

It takes a second but Eddie bursts out laughing. "What? So _HE_ can fail to give me an orgasm?"

Somehow it makes him and Beverly start belly-laughing and falling forward, clutching onto the bar-counter. It's so strange, Beverly thinks. And yet not strange at all. How no one else but Eddie could seemingly understand what she's talking about.

The constant hours of fear no matter where young Beverly stepped in her apartment. Every turn of abuse whether it was Alvin Marsh yelling into Beverly's face about looking like a whore in her loose-fitting overalls and pigtails, or the face-slaps, or knowing full well she needed to lock her bedroom door at night.

Eventually she learned how to cram a long, metal rod under her own doorknob.

She doesn't know that young Eddie would do the same, locking his bedroom door at night and hiding under his covers. Listening to Sonia Kaspbrak wail from the hallway, scratching her nails into the wood. Trying to resist her manipulation. Bawling himself to sleep, thinking about how dirty and _wrong_ Eddie must be to think of kissing boys like Richie Tozier.

"Our parents really did a number on us, didn't they?" Eddie breathes out, shuddering from his laughter.

Beverly gazes back at the inn's darkened corridor, her heart stuttering.

"You bet," she murmurs, tapping her shot glass in salute against Eddie's cognac bottle.

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_IT (2019) isn't mine. Requested by klcwriting (AO3): "Bev and Eddie as adults having a heart to heart about the effects their respective parental abuse had on them." Oh,,,,,,,, oh this one hurt me in my feefees. I really wish Beverly and Eddie could have bonded over their abuse at some point. As kids or adults. That's a secret wish of mine. I'm glad someone asked for this! Thank you! And thank you to everyone reading! I hope you liked this and any comments are welcomed!_

_((Want a request for IT? I'm doing 100-1000 word fics of any friendship or romantic ship + any prompt until I feel like quitting. Rules: you need to comment here and provide a friendship or romantic ship and prompt. You need to also specify if you want SFW or NSFW (for 18+ readers only). The only requests I'll be looking at is if you ALSO commented about the fic you just read as well. It's only fair. You came to this fic to read it and me doing something for you later on is a sweet bonus!))_

_((Do not ask for Reader/Character, OCs, Bowers Gang-centric or ship, Pennywise-centric or ship or underage. All characters for NSFW will be depicted as 18+ only.))_


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